


Homecoming

by narsus



Category: Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: F/M, M/M, Past Relationship(s), Post-Movie(s), Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-15
Updated: 2013-08-15
Packaged: 2017-12-23 14:45:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/927739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/narsus/pseuds/narsus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>James comes home after a mission: inconsequential domesticity ensues.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Homecoming

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Skyfall belongs to Eon Productions, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and others. Based on James Bond by Ian Fleming.

When James opens the door the first thing he hears is something that’s probably part of some bombastic Hollywood soundtrack. It’s at the sort of volume that drowns out anything else and normally indicates trouble. Even as he, automatically, goes through the standard security checks as he locks the door behind him, he can’t help but mentally review everything he did just before he left. As far as he can recall he hasn’t actually done anything to piss Q off. But memory, tainted by comfortable domesticity, and fickle Quartermasters, isn’t any guarantee of anything. There was nothing particularly about the mission that could have set Q off. It was routine, so routine in fact that Q had lain on the couch as he prepared to leave and asked him, in a distinctly bored fashion, not to annoy whomever it was from Q branch who was stuck manning the coms while he was away.

“Are you telling me that England’s finest are going to have to rely-“  
“You’re not ‘England’s finest’, James. Don’t delude yourself.”  
“Is that how it is then?”  
“This.” A lazy gesture towards the bottle of scotch on the floor. “is in fact from Scotland.”  
“Via Marks and Spencer’s.”  
“It was on the way home. Anyway, I only wanted a small bottle and they do such a good own brand Islay.”  
“I’ll take you to Islay for our anniversary… if you stop drinking that.”  
“Bollocks.”

He’d left with a smile and a muttered “Itterrashai” behind him. Everything had been just as it always was. Q did as Q pleased and James occasionally cast aspersions on the various things that he chose to do. In all actuality, Q behaved much as his ancestors had probably done, in his irreverent actions that pleased only himself. The middle classes had firm notions of propriety: the aristocracy hardly ever gave a damn. Of course it was usually all tucked in, hidden, because that side of Q wasn’t for public consumption, or at least not anymore.

“Darling, I’m back.”

A loud snore from the couch was the unexpected answer. For an instant James wondered if Q had spent the entire week on the couch. As it was, the change in clothing indicated that he’d moved, since the slumbering figure was in fact wearing James’ dressing-gown. Similarly there was a teapot, with delicate bonechina cup and saucer next to it, on the side table that hadn’t been there when he’d left. A laptop on the floor, a few newspapers and a book of Latin verbs completed the picture. James stepped over the mess gingerly and turned off the music, which turned out to be a new radio.

“What?”

Q woke up with a mutter and a wriggling of limbs that, by rights, should have pitched him onto the floor.

“When did you get back? You only went the other day.”

Q blinked blearily, took off his glasses, that he’d somehow managed to sleep with pressed into his face, and gave them a wipe with the sleeve of James’ dressing-gown.

“Just now. I’ve been gone a week… as the number of failed Times’ crosswords on the floor reveal.”  
“Oh. Well, I must have forgotten. You’re terribly easy to miss, you know. Wait- I meant-“  
“What did you mean?”

But James didn’t wait for an answer and silenced the rest of the haphazard protest with a kiss.

“I missed you too.”  
“You did?”  
“Of course. I think you and I can both agree that I’m getting a little old for pretending that I just don’t care.”  
“I’m not.”  
“No, you’re not.”  
“But I did. I mean, I did miss you, I always do. There, I’ve said it!”  
“I’m glad we’re operating under the same terms.”  
“Well, yes. One would hope.”

Q was always like this when he came back. When he left it was to dismissive comments and, always, a soft wish for his swift and safe return. When he returned it was to stumbled declarations of everything they both already knew. James’ job comes with plenty of risks, with more than enough danger and, physically at least, more than enough infidelity. But somehow Q deals with all of that. He knows the intimate details of all that goes on. James doesn’t hide anything. And there is no shock or horror in response, no silent pleas to leave it all behind. Q is nothing like Vespa. If it came down to it, James is fairly sure that Vespa wouldn’t have stood a chance, Q would have done away with her long before she knew he existed.

“You’ve got that look on your face again. Do I want to know?”  
“You already do.”  
“Considering that you’re a remarkably bad liar for a 00…”  
“Only with you, dear.”

Which is really the truth of it all. James not only refrains from lying to Q, he simply doesn’t need to. They’re both embroiled in a rather dirty business and, while there is a professional sense of honour and duty, other than the essentials they both tend not to care. James doesn’t actually keep track of how many people he’s killed. Q probably doesn’t count the number of promising careers he’s ruined on his way to the top.

“If you’re going to start sprouting pop-psychology-“  
“Never. What you and I are is efficient. That’s all there is to it.”  
“Good. And if you ever think otherwise we’d better get a divorce.”  
“We’d need to get married first, dear.”  
“Details, James. What is it with you and details? Anyway, we can’t get married yet, I need to wait for some people to die first.”  
“And I need to retire, and you need to become head of the service, and I need to buy a ‘modern’ car because Aston do produce new models and you like the way they sound, and-“  
“James.”  
“Yes, dear?”  
“I’m glad you’re back. Now take me to bed.”

Five minutes later James is lying on the bed smoking. In retrospect, he supposes, that if his life were a film, a dramatic, spy-thriller with lots of explosions and car chases, he’d have carried Q to bed and made love to him for hours. Since, on the other hand, he’s not a character in some novel, pitched at men of a certain age with fond memories of Empire, he’d made it into the hallway, carrying a languid Q in his arms, before he’d realised that Q had just fallen asleep again. There’d been no impassioned love scene but rather his tucking Q gently under the covers, to sleep off what looks like long nights of sleeplessness, most likely out of crossword frustration rather than lovesick yearning. The reality isn’t quite what any fantasy would suggest and perhaps, in the long run, it’s better that way. Far better to come home to a drowsy lover, after a long week of losing badly at chess with a captive Albanian, that anything more dramatic he supposes.

**Author's Note:**

> “Itterrashai” is the Japanese phrase used when someone is leaving the house, literally meaning “Please go and come back”.  
> The bonechina cup and saucer may well be from Fortnum’s High Tea range and the radio may well be a Tivoli Model One.  
> The supposed Albanian that Bond’s been losing chess to is of course 2006 film version Le Chiffre.


End file.
